Last played seriously in the WotLK days, and had a brief play with Cataclysm (got both my 80s to 85 then quit again)I was never really interested in Pandaria - I even initially thought it was an April fools joke although it was announced in November or something, but the recent announcement of Warlords of Draenor really piqued my interest again with the prospect of returning to Outland before it was Outland since I reckon Burning Crusade was my favourite expansion.

So yeah, I've reactivated, and to my surprise I'm rather liking Pandaria so far. My old guilds on both the Horde and Alliance sides seem to have more or less completely dissolved though, so is anyone else still playing? What realms are people on these days?

Any tips or things I should know these days? What the balls have they done to the talent system!?

as for the talent system, they had loads of options but everyone went for the cookie cutter best spec, so they decided to say "ok lets just have 3 specs" and then the choices you make are generally fairly viable, they don't actually change your utility too much so there is variety.... ok not a lot but some.

TIPS:#1 get to vale of eternal blossoms ASAFP. thats where your hearth needs to be set.#2 get started on the epic cape questline asafp#3 make sure you log on each week to do the weekly quest at the vale of eternal blossoms so you can get your extra loot roll*#4 Valour points are largely useless... they weren't originally but by the time you're reading this you want to be getting crafted stuff and LFR loot rolls.#5 Reputation comes from dailies... yes I know... very VERY tedious#6 http://www.askmrrobot.com is a fantastic resource for looking for upgrades and getting gem advice.

*ok so loot rolls in raids work as follows: OLD: randomise loot and let everyone roll whether it's useful or not, although some specs that can use it can roll Need NEW: randomise who gets loot and then give a class specific bit of loot to that person.PLUS if you have a token you can get an additional roll per token/boss kill to try for lootIf you fail on your roll you'll get some gold instead

Until you get to the Seige of Orgrimmar... then you've got the Flex Raid option which is a difficulty between LFR and Normal.

LFR you can queue like the dungeon queue as tank/dps/healer etc to raid.Typically you're looking at 5-15 mins wait time as a healer, 30-40mins as dps and about 10 seconds as a tank. You'll get stuck in a raid with a load of people from random realms... don't expect any manners.

Flex means they got the loot in flexible raidTimeless means it's an upgraded epic from the timeless isle (probably about a similar level to Flex)

the problem with flex is that you can't queue for it... you need to create a raid yourself, so you either need to trawl your guild, and friend and orgrimmar for playersOR register for a premade group and coordinate battletags on OpenRaid.com. OR download an addon called oQueue which is basically a LFG interface that allows you to look for battlegrounds raids rep grinds etc.Realistically I think you'll find oqueue very VERY useful for a couple of the rep grinds needed for the epic cape quest.

the starting point is: Brewmaster Tsu(A), Seer Yong(A), Kurong Caskhead(H), Cook Tsu(H), Defender Azzo(N), Teng Firebrew(N) talking to any one of them at L90 will give you a Mysterious Notehttp://www.wowhead.com/item=87261

I also reactivated my account and have been playing casually for a month or two. Dinged 90 this morning and dutifully headed to the Timeless Isle immediately. About 4 hours later I'm wearing 5 new epics (having had none) with 4 more of the wrong type I'll mail to alts, and got this on my second kill of Huolon - Reins of the Thundering Onyx Cloud Serpent.

Mwhahahahaa... ahem, so now I just have to grind the rep to exalted I need to be able to fly it Currently 0/6000 friendly. Shouldn't take long eh

It took me about 2 weeks of doing the Order of the Cloud Serpent dailies (missed a few days though) to get exalted.

I've never even killed Huolon once, either not been up when I've been there or I just arrive as it dies.

I pre-ordered Warlords of Draenor the other day and got my free boost to 90. After some deliberation I decided to get my old 56 shaman up to 60 and then use it on that in order to qualify for the profession boost too, that way I have a max level jewelcrafter, too. It was all very quick and easy, it gives you a full set of ilvl 483 gear, all riding and flying skills except for master riding and cloud serpent, and a full set of 22 slot bags for your inventory. All previously equipped and inventory items are sent to your in game mail.

Pretty good really, so I can easily jump straight into heroic 5 mans, grinding Timeless Isle or even straight into LFR.

Mister666 wrote:...got my free boost to 90. After some deliberation I decided to get my old 56 shaman up to 60 and then use it on that in order to qualify for the profession boost too, that way I have a max level jewelcrafter, too.

There's something to be said for creating a new character, levelling them to 60 (9 months til the expansion launches so plenty of time), then giving them costly/hard to level professions, then get the preorder and boost them to max level. I'm trying to work out if I'll still be playing come Christmas when the expansion goes live, and which class to boost.

If you switch professions and switch back, do you keep the skill points you had?

You can also pay for the boost on any character now through the in-game store, for £40.

On a side note, play Hearthstone and win 3 matches to get the WoW mount. Everyone's a n00b currently so it shouldn't be difficult yet, and it's free.

Mister666 wrote:It took me about 2 weeks of doing the Order of the Cloud Serpent dailies (missed a few days though) to get exalted.

Same here, was hard to even call it a grind they made it so nice and varied. Of course I can't use the mount on the Timeless Isle where I spent most of my time, and I'm now levelling up my Hunter instead as I'm bored of my Ret Pally. It's not like the old grinds! I remember reading the 'how to level' guide for a particular faction (in Silithus) in vanilla and it started, "First, kill 12,000..." and I stopped reading there.

Tonster wrote:If you switch professions and switch back, do you keep the skill points you had?

I wouldn't have thought so, it'd be the same as dropping professions to learn new ones normally, so back to 0.

Tonster wrote:On a side note, play Hearthstone and win 3 matches to get the WoW mount. Everyone's a n00b currently so it shouldn't be difficult yet, and it's free.

Yeah got mine already. Still a bit annoyed that I had to get 3 more wins since I've been playing for a couple of months in the beta and already had way more than 3 wins. Ah well didn't take long to get 3 anyway.